Show Host Fined For Illegal Deer Kills, Banned From Hunting Kansas Ever Again

Ahhh, the hazards of being an influencer: Constant demand to create content. The U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Those two collided for Matt Jennings, 35, of Georgia when he was sentenced in late July to never hunt and fish in Kansas again after pleading guilty to two counts of illegal take of whitetail deer that were also featured on his hunting show, The Game.

Jennings killed one buck in November 2022 in a part of the state where his tag was not valid, then drove the deer to Oklahoma “where he fraudulently registered the kill in Oklahoma using an Oklahoma electronic tag,” according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas.

Then a week later, he killed a second Kansas whitetail, this time in the correct area for his tag, but in violation of state rules that prohibit the taking of more than one buck per year.

Using both kills for show content, Jennings “appears to be patting himself on the back while simultaneously giving a big middle finger to the rule books,” wrote Ryan Wilby of The Venatic, an outdoor newsletter, who also reported that in the aftermath of Jennings’ sentencing, two of his sponsors had dropped him.

The investigation included work by five different state fish and wildlife agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Secret Service.

Jennings was also sentenced to pay $15,000 in restitution to Kansas’s wildlife department and a $10,000 fine, forfeit the bucks’ antlers, and prohibited from hunting or being around anybody hunting in a host of whitetail-rich Midwestern and Great Plains states for five years, a hit to someone whose YouTube motif is to “travel the US in search for that trophy buck of a lifetime.” 

Other states are now warned.